The Sunday Snewz Issue No. 18
June 4, 2023: Think, Speak & Act
In the words of Thomas Aquinas, we are called to know the truth, to fall in love with it and then act upon it unwaveringly. Saint Thomas Aquinas holds a special place in my heart because of his masterful approach of combining faith and reason. In an age when Christian thinkers were rediscovering the treasures of ancient philosophy, and more particularly of Aristotle, Aquinas gave merit to the harmony which exists between faith and reason. “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth…”
I like to think in my own small way, I do the same. Resisting the temptation to have blind faith and trust because quite frankly, that feels lazy to me. Putting all of our faith into something external requires little work on our part - a sort of outsourcing of our life to someone or something else. It is also too easy to let our own bias and ego get in the way. Allowing us to cleave onto what we have always put our trust in because we don’t like to be wrong. But faith is necessary and whether we like to believe it or not, we all have it. We have faith the sun will come up tomorrow. We trust our heart will continue to beat the next beat. We believe in love, kindness and gratitude yet we cannot see anything of those things in an objective form.
We also need reason - a cause for belief. Without reason, we blindly believe anything. Yet we have confused reason with proof. In our modern, mechanistic world, we seem to think we need objective proof in order to have faith. Impossible. Reason is merely a cause for belief, not proof of anything.
Aquinas’ call to seek truth, fall in love with it and then to act upon it is a call to think, speak and act. A practice which seems to be lost in most people these days. Those doing most of the speaking are doing little to no thinking. Those doing all of the thinking aren’t acting. Those acting aren’t doing much thinking. We better start addressing this issue or I’m afraid the shit is going to hit the fan.
According to a recent survey reported by The Independent U.K., half of Americans believe in God - the lowest number in history. Down from two-thirds in 1993 and 60% in 2008.
When Friedrich Nietzsche declared, “God is dead,” in his writings back in 1882, he wasn’t necessarily celebrating the fact. Even though he despised the church and traditional moral values, he feared that the lose of belief in God would lead mankind to believe in something much worse. His famous quote goes on to say, “…but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown.” Meaning, although belief in God is fading, men will continue to seek out authority and belief in something bigger than themselves, which is apparent in our current culture. For those who arrogantly believe they are much too sophisticated to believe in God, they fail to recognize they have simply redirected their faith into something else. Black Lives Matter, Gay Pride, Trans Issues, Covid, the government, media, and countless other institutions. We have collectively poo-pooed the idea of a spiritual being larger than ourselves yet hold institutions and ideals as our diety.
How’s that working out for us?
While I’m certainly no fan of imposing our own personal views of God onto others, I do believe we need to believe in something. And that something should look a lot like love, honesty, respect and compassion. Using that standard, I think it’s abundantly clear our institutions and social causes don’t measure up.
The U.S. government is apparently not the one giving God a run for his money. According to the latest Pew research numbers, only 20% of Americans trust their government will do what is right always/most of the time. This is about the best political news I’ve heard in awhile.
It is no wonder public confidence is this low when we have a President who has made falling an art form. What is up with this guy? One in four elderly adults fall each year, yet the leader of the free world falls one in every four days. If I didn’t hate this guy with such a passion I just might feel sorry for him. But then he goes and points to something on the stage he apparently tripped over and I’m reminded it’s just hate, not pity I feel. He has to blame something else for all of his failings - Trumpers, anti-vaxxers, sandbags. Such an admirable trait in a leader.
I guess Joe could at one time think, but clearly can no longer speak but puts on one heck of an act.
The report that only 20% of Americans have faith in their government means one thing - a new system is inevitable. We better get clear on what we want that new system to be. If we follow the trends around the world, ushering in Totalitarianism is a serious risk.
Our overly-nice neighbors to the north continue to threaten their own freedoms and give their narcissistic, fem-bot leader more power and control with the expansion of so-called hate speech laws. Turns out it is now against the law to speak against the Prime Minister in Canada. This story is so unbelievable I wouldn’t have believed it had I not listened to it myself. I suggest you listen as well.
In North Korea, a family, which includes a two year old child, has been sentenced to life in political prison for the egregious crime of - owning a Bible. Although the incident occurred in 2009, it only recently surfaced in a U.S. State Department report.
With the corruption within our institutions, the incessant need to belong to something bigger, declining mental health (especially amongst teens) and the undeniable tuning out most people are doing with screen time usage at staggering 5-6 hours per day, there has never been a more critical time for us to start thinking, speaking and acting. Unless you of course, too you want to someday be imprisoned for improper pronoun usage or worse - believing in something bigger than the government.
More good news - public trust in scientists and medical scientists more specifically has fallen below pre-pandemic levels with only 29% of Americans saying they have faith that medical scientists act in the best interest of the public. While it’s encouraging that people are no longer blindly “following the science,” it leaves us in a heap of trouble. If the public can’t trust their medical experts, who are they supposed to turn to?
Reason for skepticism is warranted. In
most recent article, Dr. McCullough outlines the explosion of autism in association with the hyper-vaccination schedule pushed by the CDC. Stating, “In the 1970’s, the rate of autism was 1 in 10,000 and the rate today has exploded to 1 in 36.”
In the world of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, people are finally starting to speak up and take action. Finally! A Connecticut teen runner is suing the state over its policy of allowing biological men to compete against biological women in sports. All along I have said this is an issue that must be fought by the female athletes competing against these men who take pride in defeating girls because they don’t measure up against their own sex. Way to go ladies - keep up the fight. Women are being degraded and decades of progress in equality are being erased. The integrity of women’s sports is on your shoulders - stand tall.
If you’re searching for something to believe in, a good search within would be a great place to start. Rather than outsourcing love, respect, honesty and compassion, try finding those things within yourself. That is where you’ll find God.